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new south wales

For rugby league nerds, this weekend is the true rugby league Christmas. We have a phenomenal mix of men’s and women’s games, featuring top line players representing teams from all over the southern hemisphere. There’s a World Cup qualifier in Sydney between the Cook Islands and South Africa. There’s two State of Origin matches, one for each cisgender. We have two women’s internationals, featuring Samoa, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, as well as the NRL’s Pacific Invitational with the same teams, except that famously Pacific nation, Lebanon, plays in lieu of New Zealand. The Kiwis will instead be facing down arch rivals Mate Ma’a Tonga to avenge their 2017 World Cup embarrassment in the opening fixture of the new Oceania Cup.

(Also worth a look this weekend in boring old club football: London Broncos vs Hull Kingston Rovers in a relegation battle. Kickoff 4.45AM AEST on Friday)

It’s a feast of rugby league and significantly more tantalising than what the NRL has served up lately. Here’s a bit of insight into each.

For the first time in a long time, it looks like we may have a well balanced Origin season. Indeed, the balance may even be a little Blue for my liking but when three of the last generation’s four best players retire from representative football, and they all happened to play for the same state, then the scales will shift perceptibly.

By now, you would know who’s playing for both Queensland and New South Wales in the first of rugby league’s three biggest games. You might even have formed an opinion as to which side is looking the goods. Consensus seems to have settled on this being the Blues’ year. But why settle for the thoughts of experts who have spent the last forty-eight hours tweeting out the leaked Blues lineup, when I’ve crunched the numbers for you?